Marker 12B
The object designated by EarthGov as the Site 12 Marker, ''also known as '''Gigas Venalicium '(Latin for Giant Marker), 'The Golden Marker, The Titan Marker,' or Isaac's Marker, is the source of the Necromorph outbreak featured in Dead Space 2. It is physically encountered in Chapter 14, although the knowledge of it's existence occurs much earlier in the game. The Site 12 Marker is the largest Marker encountered so far in the series and, like the Red Marker, is also man-made. It is the only Marker to have triggered a Convergence event, albeit unsuccessfully. Construction The Site 12 Marker was built by a team of scientists and engineers stationed on Titan Station, under the orders of Director Tiedemann. Many details regarding the construction process remain a mystery, but various logs suggest the Marker was either "grown" in mineral bath or physically constructed using machinery.Patient Four & Tiny Marker The team used Isaac Clarke, Nolan Stross, and, it is implied, at least four others (Clarke and Stross are called Patient Four and Patient Five, respectively) and suffering mental illness from a Marker's signal as the basis for their research. The signal had implanted specific codes into their brains at an earlier time -in Isaac Clarke's case, during the events of Dead Space 1 - and these "blueprints" were extracted from them during sessions in the NoonTech Diagnostic Machine, using a needle through the ocular cavity into the patient's brain. Logs found by the player character during the course of the game Dead Space 2 reveal that to highly intelligent people -people like Stross and Clarke -the Marker's signal manifests inside thier minds as 'blueprints' for the construction of a Marker; people of lesser intelligence are simply driven mad by the Marker's signal over time. To them, the signal only manifests as noise. Convergence Event When Isaac arrives at an overlook above the Site 12 Marker's chamber, he is positioned above a mass of Necromophs at its base. Nicole appears and tells him they are coming to the Marker as Convergence is at hand. During a holovid message from Tiedemann, the sheer mass of bodies near the Marker triggers the start of Convergence.Convergence The Marker flashes and emits a noise like a fog horn followed by an upthrust of wind drawing the Necromorphs up into the air. When asking what it is doing, Nicole simply replies, "What it was made to do. Isaac you have to make us whole." This echoes what she had said in Dead Space during Isaac's encounter with the Red Marker. Destruction After utilizing the Neuron Stimulation Apparatus to gain the knowledge necessary to destroy the Marker, Isaac arrives at the foot of it to find Nicole bathed in a bright light. Once Tiedemann is taken care of, Isaac is shocked when Nicole reveals her true motive is to kill him in order to allow the Marker to absorb its creator's body and complete the Convergence. A fight takes place in Isaac's mind against the apparition of Nicole and shadows that look and behave similar to The Pack. By shooting at Nicole, Isaac is able to expose the parts of his brain where the Red Marker still has an influence over him and destroy them. Isaac emerges from his mind after defeating Nicole, destroying the Marker's influence to find the Site 12 Marker essentially dead and crumbling. Although Isaac is able to escape this, the reactor cores of the station become unstable, resulting in the complete destruction of the site and the remains of the Marker. Key Differences from Aegis VII Red Marker One of the most obvious differences between the Site 12 Marker and the Red Marker is the size and color. The Site 12 Marker stands at an incredible height, towering hundreds and hundreds of feet above Isaac and the Necromorphs, compared to the Red Marker's height of roughly 10 meters. The color is also more of a pulsating yellow or gold, compared to the red hue of Aegis VII's Marker. Another key difference is in the distance that the Necromorphs are allowed to approach the Marker. In Dead Space: Martyr and Dead Space: Downfall, both the Black Marker and Red Marker exhibited the ability to keep the Necromorphs from approaching it due to the "dead space" field surrounding them. The Site 12 Marker shows no evidence of such a field or at the very least a far less powerful field, with the Necromorphs being able to approach to within an arms width of it. The Site 12 Marker may even attract Necromorphs, essentially being the opposite of the Black and Red Markers, Although this attraction might merely be how the Markers operate during Convergence, and it is possible that the Site 12 Marker repels Necromorphs in the same way the Black and Red Marker do in their dormant state, as we only see the Site 12 Marker during Convergence. Trivia *Based on the Computer readout for the "NoonTech Diagnostic Machine", the needle taps into the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus, which is the center of the Brain tasked with processing the visual information received by the Retina of the eye. It makes sense that this would be the focus of study for EarthGov when evaluating patients like Isaac Clarke and Nolan Stross who could "see" the Red Marker's symbols. *The Site 12 Marker is not made of the entirely same substance as seen on the outside. When the Marker is destroyed, you can see various support frames inside it. Gallery Image:1296643855072.png|The Site 12 Marker Image:Site_12_Marker_Active.jpg|The active Marker during "Convergence". Deadspace2_ConvergenceEventNecromorphs.jpg|The Necromorphs gathering for "Convergence". Sources Category:Markers